


Hold me and watch the apocalypse

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-26
Updated: 2010-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dave runs.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold me and watch the apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emeh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeh/gifts).



> Title from “Under the Bright Lights,” by Empires. 
> 
> Thanks again to [**emeh**](http://emeh.livejournal.com/)!

The only time Dave ever really feels _human_ \-- as opposed to a faceless nobody skulking in McKinley’s lockerrooms and hallways, terrorizing the masses-- is when he’s on the football field.

Every time he pulls his pads down over his shoulders, every time he laces up his cleats, every time he gets into his stance and feels cool grass under his bare hands, he feels like his life suddenly has purpose. His life suddenly has _meaning_.

Off the field, he’s a fuck up. Off the field, he’s a creep. He’s the asshole who chased Kurt Hummel out of McKinley to that gay utopia otherwise known as Dalton Academy, out in Westerville. Sometimes, he thinks the other guys on the football team actually blame him for the loss of their favorite target.

Off the field, he’s unraveling.

When he closes his eyes, he can see his life unspooling like thread. It already feels like it’s too late, too late to just fix everything, too late for him.

-

Hudson gets hurt their next game and it’s all his fault.

He misreads the other team’s defensive formation, doesn’t adjust when Hudson calls an audible and changes the play. The defensive end charges around Dave to Hudson unabated and sacks him for a loss.

The referee’s whistle is loud and sharp, jarring.

Then Hudson isn’t moving. Hudson is lying on his back, eyes closed, motionless. Somebody pounds Dave on the back and he turns; Puckerman is glaring at him, like he thinks Dave’s done this on purpose or something.

“Where the hell were _you_ , dude,” Puckerman growls, low and dangerous.

“I didn’t-- I must’ve missed it,” Dave stammers, unsnapping the straps of his helmet.

“Sure you did.” Puckerman glares at him darkly before shoving past him to the sidelines, helmet tucked snugly under his arm.

And now team trainers are flitting nervously over Hudson like worker bees. One of them is on his knees, speaking slowly and deliberately to Hudson.

Dave knows he should walk away, but he doesn’t, can’t. His legs won’t move. It’s like he’s planted there. He knows that feeling all too well.

“Don’t move, Finn, don’t move your head,” the trainer says.

Dave looks up, first at the light standards and then the bleachers. The spot where his parents usually sit is empty, unoccupied. His eyes shift over to the section where Hudson’s family always sits.

Burt Hummel has murder in his eyes. His teary-eyed wife is maneuvering her way down the aisles towards the field.

Dave does the only thing he knows how to do.

Dave runs.

-

“You’re distracted out there,” Beiste says.

“I know.” Dave lowers his head, flushing warm with shame. It’s a feeling he’s grown well accustomed to.

“You’re lucky Hudson’s not seriously injured,” she continues, her tone grave, eyes unflinching and cold. “We can’t have you on the team anymore. Not like this.”

Dave glances up, going cold all over. It feels like he’s been dropped in a vat of ice-cold water. His fingers tingle. “Coach.”

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” she says.

Dave turn and runs out of her office and down the hall, feet slapping noisily on the linoleum.

-

Now that he doesn’t have football, he doesn’t have anything.

Hummel is gone, tucked away safe and sound at Dalton. Football has been taken from him because he made one little mistake and Hudson got hurt.

His parents think he’s a monster. Maybe they’re not too far off on that one.

The counselor they’d sent him to told him, “It’ll get worse before it gets better, but it _will_ get better.”

He’d just laughed in the smug asshole’s face and put his feet up on the guy’s coffee table, just _daring_ him to say something.

The shrink actually reminded him a lot of that Blaine douchebag that Hummel brought to campus that one time-- Dave remembers spying a picture of him, properly labeled with little hearts drawn all over, in Hummel’s locker.

 _You’re not alone_.

Of fucking _course_ he’s alone. He’s never felt more alone in his life.

-

He has his suicide all planned out, down to the very last detail.

His mom will come home from work and find the note stuck to the fridge with her chipped Thanksgiving turkey magnet.

She’ll look around, terror seizing her, and realize something isn’t right.

She’ll go upstairs to his room. Maybe she’ll knock once, twice before trying the doorknob.

She’ll let herself in and then she’ll find him on his bed in his red letterman jacket with his class ring on his left hand.

-

In the end, he finds that he can’t go through with it.

He’s always been such a coward. He’s not even brave enough to kill himself.

He does keep a Ziploc baggie of his mom’s OxyContins at the bottom of his sock drawer, though.

Just in case.

-

Hummel comes back.

The hallways are full of whispers. Some say that he missed glee club too much. Some say there were bullying problems at Dalton that went unchecked. No one really knows and Hummel’s not spilling.

Dave realizes just how much he missed him when he spots Hummel practically gliding down the hallway, arm-in-arm with Mercedes. He looks so _happy_.

Something coils itself tightly around Dave’s chest and he realizes he’s jealous, he’s jealous of how untroubled, how fucking calm and _peaceful_ Hummel looks. He remembers the sick feeling; it’s the same feeling he had when he saw Hummel with that Dalton Academy asshole, same feeling he had when he saw Hummel slow dancing with Hudson in the choir room.

Dave wants to grab him and push him up against one of the lockers and kiss him until his mouth stings.

He wants a lot of things he knows he’ll never have.

Dave slips down an empty corridor before Hummel can see him and he runs, runs until his lungs burn, runs until he feels like his chest will explode.

The horrible thing, he thinks, as he slams through the front doors and his feet hit concrete and then asphalt, is that no matter how far he goes, how hard he tries, he will never be able to outrun what’s inside himself.


End file.
